The King snarled.
“My own volition? My mind is wracked by dreams, by faces of the past that I do not know. How can I have made my own choices if every corner I take then hides my own past from my sight? How can a man learn from his mistakes if he is trapped in a bubble of his own making and not allowed the benefit of hindsight?”
A pause, a moment of silence amidst the storm, then the whispers replied.
Very well. Behold; your hindsight.
With a shudder, Invictus fell to the floor, mouth agape, drool trailing in tendrils to the stone blocks as he shuddered in violent spasm. For in his mind, the floodgates were opened, the dam of time destroyed, the grey and hazy barrier that barred his past from his mind’s eye, burnt away like the vapours of alcohol before a match.
With a keening wail of horror at his deeds over the years, at the devastation he was about to unleash on his unsuspecting homeworld of a former life, he remembered.
Graeme Stone remembered everything.
***
Ceceline closed her eyes, rocking backwards on her feet as the blast of wind flapped the gossamer fabric about her figure, the shockwave still intense, despite the protection of the pentagram, as the torrent of power lanced down from the sky, engulfing the top of the altar in its bright, burning glow.
A bridge, a gateway between galaxies.
Tears glistened in her eyes as she pondered the climax of so many years’ work. Her efforts, her manipulations, her temptations; keeping the secrets from her King, showing him only what he wanted to see and leaving out what he didn’t, all of it had resulted in this incredible night.
Her masters would be pleased, for soon, so soon, the gateway would be open and, when it was large enough, the unseen armies of her lords would march through the open portal to unleash their destruction on an unwary, unsuspecting world.
The pillar of light vanished, leaving a scorched imprint on the eye, but it mattered not; the deed was done, the connection established. For the alignment went further, far further than the mere stars above – the alignment of celestial bodies stretched onward, ever onward, crossing the great gulf of the void, leaving this small, depleted husk of a galaxy and reaching all the way out to that of Stone’s birth; the teeming, spiral cloud of dust and planets that bustled with life, fresh, rich and ripe for the taking.
Oh, how Ceceline’s mind had almost exploded, so many years ago when the whispers had shown her the scale of their vision.
She frowned for an instant, then laughed, incredulously, as a figure high atop of the stairs struggled to right itself before standing, still and unsteady, looking down on them with dumbstruck eyes.
“He still lives?”
The Huntsman was beside her, his tone belligerent, as ever.
“You said the energies of the alignment would kill him!”
She grunted in dismissal at his outburst.
“Obviously we underestimate the handiwork of our masters, my bellicose friend. However, don’t be concerned; their blessing has left him now. He is quite… drained.”
“And his glaives?”
The Seeress nodded, a slight inclination of her head, towards the Pen that lay sprawled on the coast behind them. Kurnos grinned, feral and savage, his eyes a raging furnace that spoke of hunger for a sport never before chased.
“My Hounds!” he roared into the lightning-lashed sky. “Take your once-king, for tonight, the apex-predator has become the prey!”
With shrieks of bloodthirsty glee, the Hounds of Kurnos charged forwards to the foot of the stairs, gibbering and wailing as they fought past each other for the honour of being the first to stab their former ruler, all the while shaking their heads and foaming as they suffered from the itching, transforming influence of the energies steadily growing atop the tower.
Stone had just started descending the stairs, slow, unsteady, like a person who had just awoken from a long sleep and was unsure whether they still dreamt or not, when the first of Kurnos’ hunting dogs met him, leaping, teeth bared as they bit hard on his arms with slavering jaws. The shock of the sudden pain jarred him to his senses and he roared in rage, spinning about until the dogs flew from his limbs, leaving scores across his leather-tough skin, their pitiful whines receding into the distance as they plummeted, a hundred feet, from the sides of the steps.
With a snap of his neck, Stone turned his gaze on the charging men who flew, gibbering, towards him up the steps, axes, swords, spear and nets all raised high. With a battle-cry, he leapt down to meet them.
Though no longer fuelled by the dark and unnatural power that had, until recently, flowed through him, Stone was still a veritable god amongst men, even without his supernatural powers. Towering high above his foes, Stone’s iron-hard limbs thrust out, his reactions swift, his strength unmatched, the martial prowess of a century of growth laying waste to all who met him in a whirlwind orgy of carnage. Swords bent and buckled against his skin, nets were torn like parchment and scream after scream echoed through the night as Stone grasped a hunter by his ankles, swinging him about the steps, each sweep hurling a dozen berserker barbarians from the altar to smash, with a crunch, on the blocks below.
Far beneath the slaughter, at the bottom of the steps, Ceceline watched with growing amusement as the Huntsman’s troops were decimated in short order, to the swirling backdrop of a growing magical maelstrom.
“Seems we’ve underestimated him indeed!”
Kurnos snarled, spitting on the stone floor, before unwinding his toothed whip from about his back.
“We shall see…”
The Master of the Hunt bounded away from the Seeress, a motion ill-suited to his stocky frame, his whip of human-teeth cracking the air as he charged towards his former master.
Stone stopped, as did the Huntsman, ten steps between them.
The ex-King hissed.
“Kurnos,” his voice was dark, trembling with horror. “ I… I can’t believe I sanctioned your atrocities. The suffering. The tearing of villagers from their homes.” His mind was wracked with visions from his past, a peaceful, serene village of farmers and hunter-gatherers, his friends, his family, torn from him; blackened, charred. Ashes. Ashes on the wind.
Kurnos’ lips twisted in a hideous smile.
“But sanction them you did, my king. Call me a monster, by all means. But when it comes down to it, I was only doing what you bade me…”
The whip of teeth cracked out, bridging the gap between them in an instant as it aimed for Stone’s throat, but his reactions were swift, raising his arm to defend himself, the barbed length of cord wrapping itself about his forearms, the yellowed ancient teeth digging, viciously, into the flesh.
For a moment, the two titans strained, each pulling in an effort to throw the other off balance; but Stone was no longer Invictus, no longer the invincible chosen one of Those that Dwell Beyond the Veil. And the Huntsman was a Councilman, his power swelled now that one of their ranks had fallen.
With a savage cry of triumph, Kurnos heaved with all his might, Stone’s stomach lurching as he flew from the steps, spinning in dizzying rolls as he soared, uncontrollably through the air, before landing at the bottom of the steps, the flagstones beneath him shattering with a splintering crack.
Lying on his stomach, the former ruler struggled to rise to his hands and knees, pain, so seldom a visitor to his senses these last decades, shooting through his every screaming joint. He looked up, his head throbbing, to see the Seeress standing before him, beautiful as ever, her smiling face gazing down at him as though about to offer him words of comfort. He opened his mouth to speak, but his voice was cut short, the cruel barbs of teeth digging now into the soft meat of his neck, the cord tight about his windpipe as Kurnos dragged him, helplessly backwards away from the Seeress, Stone’s arms outstretched towards her in desperate, silent plea.
Kurnos leaned low as he choked the life from his fallen king, his voice hissing quiet and menacing into Stone’s ear.
“Your durability is what mad
e you so instrumental to our masters’ plans, Invictus. Only you could channel the powers necessary to forge the altar. Without it to hold the portal in place, the gateway would fall and collapse.” The Huntmaster forced his knee into the space between Stone’s shoulder-blades, applying more pressure on the whip about his throat so that his victim’s eyes began to bulge with the pressure, his face turning purple with lack of fresh blood and air. “Time,” spat Kurnos, his every word pronounced with the pleasure of finality, “to see just how long your much vaunted invincibility can last with no air…”
A long time, thought Stone. For this was not the first time he’d been choked.
Unconsciously, his body switched to reverse-metabolisation, waste products, non-essential nutrients all being retro-actively reabsorbed and converted into energy, his limbs surging with fresh strength despite the cord about his neck. The shocked Huntsman was unprepared for the assault, not expecting the elbow to his gut, the backwards head-butt that smashed his nose, or the spinning jump kick from those mighty legs that caught him in the side of the head and sent him crashing down, skidding away from Stone across the ground.
Stone stood, looming over his stunned adversary, casting the toothed whip away from him with a look of disgust.
“That’s your problem, Kurnos; you act on instinct, never planning ahead.”
A sudden, burning pain lanced through his side and a hand grasped about his throat, his legs buckling from underneath him as a rasping voice whispered into his ear.
“I, however, don’t suffer from such a problem.”
To the bloodied chuckles of the rising Huntsman, Stone sprawled to the floor, the dagger wrenching from his side as he fell. A creeping, seeping, worming pain began to trickle inward from the puncture wound; lancing tendrils of fire that threaded their way along veins and arteries, every organ, every muscle they touched spasming in indescribable agony.
With a gasp, Stone rolled to his back, looking up into the darkness where there had been nothing only an instant before. Now there was Memphias, standing, face impassive yet grey eyes shining with satisfaction at a job well done.
“That pain you’re feeling, my King, is the culmination of ten years of trial and error,” he began to explain, slowly walking around his shuddering victim as Kurnos wiped the blood from his nose and Ceceline watched on in interest.
“What venom can hurt a god-king, I used to ask myself? For does your body not adapt, every single time, to render itself immune to a newly discovered toxin? But then it struck me; any such poison could kill you, if only your body didn’t get round to neutralising it…”
He bent down, crouching over Stone who lolled, his eyes threatening to roll back in his head.
“There are twenty separate venoms on this dagger,” he held up the weapon, its dark blade shimmering with Ceceline’s sorceries that had allowed it to piece his iron-hard flesh. “And by the time your body has managed to nullify even the first three or four, the rest of them will have done their job.”
He smiled, no humour there, the effect simply to intimidate his victim. He was savouring this moment, for rarely did he get to enjoy his work. Rarely did he get to assassinate so worthy a victim.
“First,” he began, “your limbs shall cramp, seizing solid. Then, your liver shall shrivel, followed by your kidneys. Then your lungs will fill with fluid. But this won’t matter, because before long, your heart shall stop beating entirely.” He sniffed, eyes cold and filled with a mixture of curiosity and hatred. “You may be able to live without air, my King; but how well can you survive when the very blood in your veins, in your brain, turns to clotted, stagnant mush?”
Feeling within him the truth of Memphias’ words, Stone looked about the platform with desperate eyes, even as he was wracked with tremors of violent pain. There, a familiar face.
“Bavard…” he croaked, his hand outstretched towards his General.
The warrior may have heard him, may have not, it was hard to tell for he was in some kind of dream world of his own, gibbering maniacally to himself, replying in fits and starts to voices that only he could hear as his long-buried madness was being dredged up by forces beyond his control.
“You waste your time, Stone. He is lost to you now. He belongs to our masters.”
Ceceline, cool, beautiful, walked slowly towards his prone form as she spoke, her tone ever calm with that hint of perpetual amusement.
“Why…?” asked the former King with his dying breaths as the toxins continued their toil within him. “Why all this? We’ve been together so long… why… this betrayal?”
The Seeress smiled at him with the patience of a parent listening to a child going on about their imaginary adventures.
“Betrayal? My darling King, there is no betrayal in this; it was all fated, predestined from the beginning. You think you arrived here, in this world, by accident?” She laughed, the sound still so pretty, so pure, even in the midst of all this. “No, my dear; you were taken, plucked by our masters, like a grape from a bunch, a hundred years ago at the previous astral alignment. All it took was enough emotion for them to find you, seek you out from across the void. All it took was a slight nudge for you to jump willingly into their arms.”
Stone shuddered, not with the pain this time, but with the knowledge of such complete and utter manipulation. His life, all one hundred and twenty five years of it, had been nought but a charade, a plan, put into motion by dark and hitherto nameless powers, simply so that he be in the right places at the right times. A weapon, he recalled being told, many years ago.
And yet, despite the feeling of helplessness, that he’d been dangling from cosmic strings, the whispers had been right too; he had always had a choice. Every life he’d taken in pursuit of absolute power, he’d chosen to do, no hand forcing him.
He’d been nudged in the right direction, sure, by circumstance, but his actions were still his actions and his alone. There were no excuses. All his life he’d been wronged, in such small and petty ways, then the power had been given him to take back control of his life. But he’d done more than take it back; he’d overreached, assuming that his past suffering gave him an excuse to inflict the same on others.
He was wrong. And he would die, knowing that.
“What now?”
Ceceline looked up into the dark skies to the glowing stars directly above.
“Now? Now the portal opens, a gateway to whatever rich and flavourful world you came from. And when it is fully open, the legions of our masters shall march. And your world shall burn, as this one has and just as a million, a million-million have before it.”
He looked up through a blur of pain to the top of the altar where the emerald glowed with an otherworldly power, the very air about it beginning to ripple as the barrier between dimensions was straining at the seams. He looked back to the Seeress, his friend, his almost-equal of the last century, seeing the truth in her eyes.
“I told you,” she whispered, so that none of those assembled still in neat rows atop the tower could hear. “I told you that I would destroy you when you least expected it…”
He opened his mouth as though to reply, but a sudden gust of wind began to pick up, roaring across the top of the tower, intensifying in seconds till it was almost hurricane-force in its power. Clansmen, Hounds, Lords of the Land, all were scattered before its might, flailing as they were blown to the ground, scrabbling for grip on the smooth stones, mortar of flesh tearing away beneath their fingernails as many of them were sent over the edges of the platform to fall, for long, terrifying seconds, to their demise.
Kurnos lashed out with his whip, the cord wrapping about a column of stone at the bottom of the altar-steps and holding him in place. Memphias crouched down, the point of his dagger firmly dug into the stone beneath him as it anchored him. Ceceline raised her hands, a wedge of sorcerous power driving out before her and splitting the gale as it sought to blow her over. Only Bavard stood unaided in his plate, gibbering and drooling, his limbs swollen with the i
nflux of dark power that sought to overtake his mind.
Rolling over painfully onto his front, Stone stared into the source of the wind, breathing in its purity, his eyes watering at its cooling touch, feeling with shame and longing the carefree, capricious nature of its elemental heart. Tinkling laughter in the storm, like that of children, playful and mischievous, and Ceceline’s eyes widened.
“No!”
She reached out with a blast of dark lightning to seize Stone, but a flash of light, a suggestion of tiny, elfin wings and smiling, sylphin shapes, and he was gone, her powers raking empty air.
And, just as suddenly as it had arrived, the gale-force wind subsided, till it was no more than a memory, its howl a ringing echo in the ears.
Memphias rose from his crouch, ripping the dagger from the stone with a scraping ting of metal, as all about him the scattered troops righted themselves with moans of pain, rubbing concussed heads and clutching broken limbs.
“Where’d he go?”
The Seeress answered him, staring into the skies to the North, her mind’s eye recalling with a shudder the mighty, booming voice that had repulsed her as she had delved into the mind of the flame-haired shaman, so long ago.
“Taken,” she told him, as she glared accusingly at the lumbering Huntsman that untied himself from his anchor at the foot of the steps, “by the very same forces I had instructed that oaf to seek out and destroy.”
“If they had that power all along,” retorted Kurnos, “why did they not take him before now? Why wait till the crux?”
“Because he was under the protection of our masters before now,” she explained with a snarl. “Now their hand is removed from him, the shamans could find him, summon their spirit allies to take him.”
“How long till the portal is ready for our masters’ legions to move?” enquired the Assassin, his mind ever focused on the practical.
“Two weeks,” came the answer as the Seeress gazed up at the rippling tear in reality that pulsated outwards from the altar-top. She smiled as she continued. “Though we may be able to speed up the process, somewhat.”
The Fall to Power (The Graeme Stone Saga) Page 15
